They best can judge a poet's worth,
Who oft themselves have known
The pangs of a poetic read more

They best can judge a poet's worth,
Who oft themselves have known
The pangs of a poetic birth
By labours of their own.

Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appeared,
And ages ere the Mantuan Swan was heard;
To carry nature read more

Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appeared,
And ages ere the Mantuan Swan was heard;
To carry nature lengths unknown before,
To give a Milton birth, asked ages more.

A poet not in love is out at sea;
He must have a lay-figure.

A poet not in love is out at sea;
He must have a lay-figure.

The Helicon of too many poets is not a hill crowned with sunshine and visited by the Muses and the read more

The Helicon of too many poets is not a hill crowned with sunshine and visited by the Muses and the Graces, but an old, mouldering house, full of gloom and haunted by ghosts.

I am what libraries and librarians have made me, with little assistance from a professor of Greek and poets.

I am what libraries and librarians have made me, with little assistance from a professor of Greek and poets.

Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition.

Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition.

A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.

A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.

Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit
Of poets triumphs over it.

Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit
Of poets triumphs over it.

Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him,
Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,
Catullus read more

Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him,
Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,
Catullus scarcely has a decent poem,
I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example,
Although Longinus tells us there is no hymn
Where the sublime soars forth on wings more ample;
But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one
Being with "Formosum Pastor Corydon."